Received a message from my Sony TV last night:
We have decided to discontinue the following functions on this device as of APRIL 2024. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
Model KDL-55W800B
New TV Sales must be slow…
Not great - I'd prefer a TV to basically be a monitor.
Fortunately there are a lot of options:
TIL that some people still use old, slow, original TV OS.
TIL 'TIL', NGL
A good reminder that "smart devices" in your home do not remain smart forever. Until we look to emulate the open models of Wi-Fi and PCs, IoT will always be a source of never-ending e-waste.
I'd imagine in the not too distant future we'll start to see similar scenarios on cloud-connected things like electric vehicles. Imagine booting up your Tesla and you get an notification from Musk apologizing that your car is obsolete and YouTube / Steam and self driving is no longer supported.
Not sure self driving was properly supported in the first place. Although getting in my BYD to find out that there's now a karaoke app with k-pop voice enhancement was one of the better days of my life.
Personally, I like what Sony is doing. Rather than simply leaving a great big vulnerability there for someone to exploit they're just killing the feature and the dumb TV remains. I hope that's the same with cars, the car still works fine but they cut off as many connections to the outside world as they can.
I don't read that as no Netflix or YouTube apps, rather you won't be able to control them with your phone.
Be grateful the TV still works after 15 years.
I have the 50" KDL-50W800B - and have not used the built-in youtube and netflix for so long I cant remember. Have been using AppleTV which has the youtube app and infuse app for streaming from plex. works well for us.
I have a Sony 32EX650 (bought for $70 couple of years ago from an e-waste place, so can't complain anyway) with builtin Skype, Youtube etc. I have never connected it to internet and don't even know those smart functions still works. I got a Fetch Mighty for $99 from a previous deal and I use it for all PVR, Premium TV and streaming. I also don't use TV's buit-in tuner either and use Fetch STB's tuner. TV also works well with Fetch voice remote with HDMI CEC. Fetch Mighty also supports Chromecast (ex: share Youtube from phone to TV).
Recently I got a Yamaha AVR and did setup a 5.1 audio setup (cost me $150 altogether) and TV controls it (ex: auto AVR on/off with TV) well with HDMI ARC/CEC.
TBH, Sony TVs are value for for money, considering picture quality and features, I don't know any other newer cheap models to upgrade from this.
Amazon Firestick will fix that.